Hawkeyes Pick Up Commitment from Michael Sleep-Dalton

After struggling with its punting game the last two seasons, Iowa added to the position Friday when Michael Sleep-Dalton announced his commitment to the Hawkeyes. The Australian native spent the last two seasons as Arizona State’s starter.

The graduate transfer will have one year of eligibility at Iowa. He’ll compete with Colten Rastetter, who started the last two seasons with the Hawkeyes, and Ryan Gersonde, a redshirt sophomore from Wisconsin who is on scholarship. Sleep-Dalton also is receiving a scholarship, while Rastetter remains a walk-on.

“Proud to be a Hawkeye! 110% committed, and blessed to have the opportunity to be a part of such an amazing program,” Sleep-Dalton Tweeted.

Sleep-Dalton spoke with HN last week, when he told us he was finishing up some paper work before he would be able to announce his Iowa pledge. He talked about his long journey to the states and major college football, and why was the best place for him.

“I’m hoping to challenge myself with being able to kick in conditions like Iowa will face, being in a program where Coach (Kirk) Ferentz has built such amazing program and being coached by coaches like coach Woods who has seen first hand what it takes to play in the NFL. Also, the fan base Iowa has looks and seems amazing,” he said.

He’ll finish up this semester at Arizona State and move to Iowa City in May.

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Sleep-Dalton still is new to the game. He punted for one year the City College of San Francisco, a junior college program. He red shirted during his first season at Arizona State and has started the last two campaigns there.

As a sophomore, he averaged 39.9 yards per punt with nine punts of 50 yards or more, 17 punts putting opponents inside their 20 and 13 attempts that were fair caught. This fall, he averaged 43.8 yards per punt with 10 punts traveling 50 yards or more, 19 punts inside the 20 and 20 fair catches.

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He tore a quad muscle before the start of his sophomore season, requiring him to punt with his left leg for the first four games. That affected his average that year.